The US Supreme Court handed down decisions Monday, on the case of Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly where the Court held that a plaintiff filing an antitrust lawsuit under the Sherman Act [text] must allege specific facts in the complaint showing that defendants participated in a conspiracy. William Twombly filed a class-action lawsuit alleging that telephone and Internet service providers created after the breakup of AT&T in the early 1980s conspired by blocking local competitors from their service areas and agreeing not to compete with one another. The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled [PDF text] that Twombly's pleading, which inferred a conspiracy by the defendants' "parallel conduct," was sufficient, but the Supreme Court overruled the federal appeals court. Instead, the Supreme Court said that a complaint under §1 of the Sherman Act should be dismissed "when it alleges that major telecommunications providers engaged in certain parallel conduct unfavorable to competition, absent some factual context suggesting agreement, as distinct from identical, independent action." This may have implication on AMD v INTEL.